Repentance
by Azrulai
Summary: A mistake Draco made a long time ago has haunted his conscience ever since, and suddenly it has reentered his life in a very real way. WARNING: Rape, although not overly graphic. M for a reason. DM/OC.
1. Chapter One

**Read A/N at the bottom.**

Repentance

It wasn't a vivid memory, for obvious reasons. It was actually more like fragments of memory, shards of glass that formed an incomplete, hideous structure. Each one made its own deep, bloody gash. Each one haunted him day and night, triggered by some accidental matching fragment of real life. A woman's scream, torn clothing, alcohol, darkness. The voices of his friends, before they had been taken from him. He wasn't as saddened by that as he might have been.

At first he felt like a stranger in his own body, a monstrous stranger. He abhorred himself with every fiber of his being. He tried to find solace in the fact that his friends showed no remorse- at least he was better than them- but it had all been his fault and his actions had all been far worse. Eventually he no longer felt like a stranger- he recognized that he was to blame for that night, that he had been the monster all along.

He developed a hatred for all human contact. It felt only right, or as close to right as possible. Nothing was ever right, nothing could stop the torture.

**Fragments.**

_The smells: _

_Alcohol. Muggle alcohol- vodka and scotch. On his breath, his friends', their clothing. Cigarette smoke. Her perfume, gardenia, saccharinely sweet. His own cologne, the one he hadn't worn since. The cool summer night smell. Sweat. And sex: the repulsive, sticky smell of sex._

_The sounds: _

_Screams. Shrieking, bright screams, feminine screams. The tearing of fabric. Laughter. His friends' sick, twisted laughter. Their words, egging him on. His own grunts._

_The jangling of the chain of her heavy gold locket, as she held it out and yelled something. Did she want them to take it instead of hurting her? Blaise grabbed it; tore it painfully off her neck. It didn't save her. _

_The feeling: _

_Pleasure. It made him sick to think about it now, but pleasure. The pleasant buzz in his head that came from drink. Hot skin, the last that he would ever touch willingly. Her skin, an occasional brush of his friends' knuckles wrapped around her arms. The feathery ends of her short hair. Stickiness._

_The taste:_

_Bitter, metallic blood. The taste of her; sweet and innocent. Her tears; salt. Skin._

_And then there were footsteps. Footsteps saved her. It was too late, but it saved her from having to endure even more. They ran. He tore the locket from Blaise's hand, threw it back at her. They shouldn't carry any evidence. Her cries as they left._

_The taste of his vomit, the pounding of his head. His own tears the next morning, when he remembered. More vomit. The water running down his shaking body, the soap that could never make him clean. _

o0O0o

Draco Malfoy tied his silk tie deftly, his back to the bathroom mirror. Once it would have been difficult for him- to do it without looking- but by now he was used to it. He turned to the mirror for a split second, to make sure it was okay, but quickly looked away. He had been avoiding mirrors for years, but he needed to look good today.

Today he would meet his future bride.

Draco knew very little about her. She was the eldest daughter of a well-known Italian pureblood family, the de Contis, and had been chosen mainly because the number of pureblood families that were not closely related to the Malfoys was rapidly decreasing.

She was supposedly very beautiful, but a quiet girl. This was, according to Draco's father, both a good thing and a bad one. Submissiveness was good, but she had to learn to hold her head up in society functions.

This meeting was more than a year overdue- normally it would take place as soon as the girl came of age. Draco was now twenty years of age, and his bride almost nineteen. The war had delayed their first acquaintance and their now impending nuptials, but it could not be delayed forever.

Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco had come out of the war relatively unscathed despite having been on the losing side for much of it. Lucius had a talent for coming out of things unscathed.

The experience- the actions, his own actions- that constantly haunted Draco, though it always felt like yesterday, had happened almost two years ago in the midst of the war, as the Malfoys and an assortment of other Voldemort sympathizers were recuperating in Italy. The three boys who had been there (Blaise Zabini, Vincent Crabbe, and Gregory Goyle) with Draco had all died shortly afterward, and Draco viewed his continued life as a special punishment designated for him alone.

Draco glanced at his watch and sat down in a rather uncomfortable straight-backed chair before the fireplace, waiting. He stared at the flames, letting their flickering forms engrave themselves in his eyelids.

What he had done that night changed Draco's life forever. His arrogance, a trait that seemed to have been passed on genetically and had been encouraged all his life, disappeared entirely. Any superiority complex or pureblood supremacism vanished. He was a changed man, but he did not see that. He only saw the monster he had been and always would be.

Draco was pulled from his hazy reverie by the quiet _pop_ of a house elf's appearance.

"Mistress Narcissa requests your presence at the manor, Master Draco," the tiny thing squeaked. Draco nodded slightly, still staring at the fireplace. He didn't rise to apparate out of his mansion and into his family's manor until a few moments after the small elf had given him a low bow and made her exit.

o0O0o

Draco entered his mother's elaborately decorated dressing room quietly. She was seated at her vanity wearing a floor-length silver satin slip and tilting her head so that her specially trained elf could sweep some shimmery makeup over her eyelids. When the elf was finished, Narcissa caught Draco's eye in the beveled glass above her vanity. He quickly looked down.

"Draco, there you are! What took you so long? They'll be here in half an hour!"

"Yes, mother."

"Tell me, Draco, the diamonds or the emeralds?" Narcissa held two ornate bracelets up against the dark green evening gown she was planning to wear.

"The diamonds, mother." Draco answered. He watched as a short elf stood on a stool to lace up the corseted back of his mother's dress. She looked at her son for a long moment.

"You should be happy, Draco. She is said to be very attractive. Not like that Parkinson girl you went around with at Hogwarts."

Draco felt his blood boil at the disrespectful reference to his long-dead friend, but his aristocratic visage displayed nothing but calm. "I know, mother. I am happy," he lied.

o0O0o

"May I present Emilio and Gianna de Conti and their daughter, Aniela." Draco stared nervously at his feet as the wide French doors opened. His father nudged him, and he looked up as the girl and her parents entered the room.

She _was_ beautiful. Slim and rather small, with long dark hair halfway down her back. Her eyes were big and brown, her olive complexion clear, her lips naturally pink. She was wearing white, as befit the occasion in a very ironic way- a creamy silk empire waist gown with long layers of chiffon on the skirt. She curtsied neatly, looking down at her golden-slippered feet, and then looked up at Draco. Her eyes widened slightly, but she did not make a sound. Looking into those eyes, Draco also felt like he knew her from somewhere.

Then the sun caught a bit of gold at her neck. It was a heavy oval locket- _the_ locket. Draco suddenly understood what the girl had been trying to say with the locket- it was engraved with the de Conti crest, something Draco would have recognized anywhere if he had gotten a good look at it.

Bile rose in Draco's throat, and he swayed slightly on his feet. He lifted a shaking hand to his forehead, and it was all he could do not to collapse on the cold marble beneath him.

o0O0o

**A/N: I'm going to be on vacation for the next three weeks, so I'll post the next section after I get back on July 26****th****. I'll also update "Unlikely Places" then, for those of you who are reading that. I just **_**had**_** to get this idea out, because it was driving me crazy. **

**I recommend putting me on Author/Story Alert (if, of course, Author Alert isn't how you found this story in the first place :-) so that you'll be alerted when I post next. For those of you who don't know me, I'm usually a very fast updater, especially while I'm on vacation. I wrote my first fourteen-thousand-word fic in one week over February break. **

**Please review and tell me if this thing is worth continuing anyway. Thanks in advance! (Muhahaha, I've already thanked you so now you have to review…)**


	2. Chapter Two

**A/N: I'm back! Well, actually I was back on Sunday. Sorry that took so long, but I think this is more exciting than Chapter One.**

_Bile rose in Draco's throat, and he swayed slightly on his feet. He lifted a shaking hand to his forehead, and it was all he could do not to collapse on the cold marble beneath him._

o0O0o

The two sets of parents present could hardly fail to notice Draco's reaction, if not Aniela's. Gianna de Conti broke the silence first.

"Do you two… know each other from somewhere?" she inquired tentatively.

Draco quickly composed himself. _Yes,_ he thought,_ in a past life._

"No," he said out loud, "I've been feeling a bit off all day, you'll have to excuse me. Must be nerves."

"Well, then," Lucius cut in, quickly covering for his son's moment of weakness, "Dinner is waiting. Elf!"

One of the Manor's many house elves appeared instantly at Lucius' side, bowing low. Lucius never called the elves by name- they were always simply "elf".

"Shall I set out the first course?" the elf asked. Lucius nodded curtly and led the group through the large French doors into the dining room just as the small creature snapped it's long fingers, cueing soup to fill the silver bowls on the table. Draco held a chair for Aniela, as he had been trained to do, being careful not to look at her or let his fingers brush her skin or dress. Taking his own seat directly across from her, Draco looked down at his soup. His appetite seemed to have deserted him.

Narcissa and Gianna began a conversation about plans for the upcoming wedding, which was to take place towards the end of the imminent spring season. It looked like the prospective in-laws were getting along far better than the bride and groom, but isn't that always the case with arranged marriages?

Draco looked up, feeling Aniela's eyes boring into him. The two young people stared at each other in expressionless silence as their fathers began an exchange on relations between the magical communities of Italy and the UK.

Both knew that their secret was destined to remain just that- secret. Draco would stay silent for obvious reasons, Aniela for less obvious ones. In pureblood society, to be raped was to be forever disgraced. A pureblood girl was to be a pristine, pure, innocent on her wedding day. Draco was the only person alive who knew that Aniela was no longer a virgin, and anything she said about it had the power to destroy her life as much as his.

Dinner passed with few words exchanged between the awkward couple. They stayed silent unless spoken to, and were never involved in a conversation that was not led by one of the older people at the table. After the chocolate and blood orange soufflés, Draco was left alone with Aniela in the study as their parents took an after-dinner drink in the parlor and discussed their children's future (read: dowries and other financial matters). He stared at her from an armchair across the room. She stared back. He covered his face with his hands. She stared.

A bottle of Chateau d'Yquem sauternes had been thoughtfully left for them. Draco got up and retrieved an unopened bottle of firewhiskey from his father's "secret" stash. Pouring a glass, he held it out to Aniela. She looked at it appraisingly, then turned her head away to gaze at the carpeted floor. Draco downed the copper-colored liquid himself, poured another, and sat back down. Aniela, looking at Draco the whole time, deftly uncorked the sauternes and poured herself one of the two dainty crystal glasses next to it.

Should he apologize? It didn't seem like it would do any good- you couldn't apologize for things like that.

"Do you _want_ to marry me?" Aniela suddenly asked. Draco looked up from his whiskey glass.

"Of course I don't! _You_ are a living reminder of the worst mistake of my life." She sipped her wine.

"We should probably silence this room."

"Just kick that door shut, it automatically silences itself."

"Convenient. So you're sorry?"

"Of course I'm sorry! I was drunk, I didn't know what I was doing- I know that's not an excuse…"

"Answer me this;" she said, "would you have done what you did if you had known who I was?"

"No, I don't think I would have."

Aniela was shocked by her own ability to stay calm. "And that proves that you're just like any other sick former Deatheater. If I was a muggle girl, you wouldn't care. You were never sorry until now. I can't believe I'm being forced to marry you."

"That isn't true. I am not a former Deatheater," Draco said defensively, "I'm different… I've changed. I've regretted what I did every moment since, dreamed of it every night, been haunted by it constantly," he shook his head, looking down. "In fact, that's the one good thing, I think, that came out of all this. It rid me of all my bigotries, my delusions of grandeur… at least it grounded me."

Suddenly, Draco's head snapped up again. "I need to escape from... all this." he gestured around the richly decorated study with it's silk brocade drapes and goldleaf-edged mahogany furnishings. "I should just run away."

"No way. I'll get in trouble with my parents if you run away." Draco raised an eyebrow. "Trust me, it's the kind of thing they'd do."

"Yeah, I kind of know the type. So how about you run away too?"

"Alone?" Aniela suddenly looked rather frightened and not half as collected and controlled as she had appeared to Draco for the past few hours. Draco looked at her thoughtfully.

"How about… together?"

"Are you fucking crazy? Well yes, obviously—"

"No, actually, I'm not, not anymore. Look- maybe I can't make you trust me just on good word—"

"—oh trust _me_, _your_ 'good word' means NOTHING—"

"—but what I can do… ugh, there's no one who can bind us for an unbreakable vow… oh, I just know I saw something…" Draco trailed off as he flipped through a thick, leather-bound volume plucked off the top shelf of one of the bookcases that lined the study.

"Here!" he pointed his wand at himself, muttering words and staring intently at the open book. Aniela watched him carefully, wondering what he was doing, but was still taken by surprise as he flicked his wand towards her. She tried to pull out her own, but it was concealed rather _difficultly_ in her unforgiving dress and there was no way she could have blocked in time anyway. She felt a pleasantly warm sensation as the light from Draco's wand seemingly disappeared into her skin, leaving it glowing slightly for a moment before fading. When it was over, she felt completely normal- but that didn't stop her from pointing her wand, now successfully retrieved, directly at Draco's heart.

"What the hell did you do to me, you sick bastard!? Take it off right now! I'm warning you, say the countercurse—"

"I can't," Draco replied coolly, "only you can." He turned the spellbook in her direction. She took the book, disarmed him with a flick of her wrist, and held both wands tightly at her side as she read.

_The Bound-Safety Spell_

_The Bound-Safety Spell forms a magical relationship between two people- one being the Bound, the other being the Protected. It can be cast either by a third party or by the Bound himself, in rare cases, but not by the Protected. Essentially, the spell prevents the Bound from causing any physical harm- intended or accidental, magical or otherwise- to the Protected. The spell is a serious commitment to enter into, as it can only be lifted by the Protected himself. For instructions on how to perform and lift the Bound-Safety Spell, see below._

Draco watched Aniela as she finished the explanation and scanned the incantations and diagrams of wand motions underneath it. When she raised her head, he knew she would trust him. How could she not? Suddenly, she grabbed the sleeve of his robe and pulled, jerking his body sharply towards her armchair. He began to topple over, desperately trying to regain balance and prevent the physical contact. Just as he was about to fall on top of her, a visible light shone between them and he was thrown across the room, hitting the bookshelf and dislodging several large tomes which fell on top of him as he crumpled to a heap on the floor.

Aniela grinned. "Okay, I trust you."

Draco looked disgruntled as he got up and brushed himself off, replacing the books in their proper places. "Was that really necessary?"

"Absolutely. So, do we have a deal?"

o0O0o

**I know what you're going to say- Aniela seems far less affected by this whole thing than she should be. I can't say I've ever met a rape victim or that I know anything about the psychology or trauma of it, but what I'm trying to do here is to have her repress her emotions and try to act calm about it all, mostly because of her upbringing. She will get more emotional later. Also, while she seemed kind of timid earlier, she actually has quite a fiery personality- that's my first prerequisite whenever I write a character with Draco. She's really an exceptionally strong girl.**

**Sorry about all that explanation, but I felt it might be helpful to some readers.**

**I may not be able to update for a while, because I'm going to my grandparents' tomorrow and I'm also alternating between updating this and **_**Unlikely Places**_**. **

**I loved the three reviews I got for the first chapter, ****and I'd really love to get some more, so hop to it!!**


	3. Chapter Three

**A/N: I've been very busy and writer's block-y lately, but hopefully I'll get back into the groove from here on out. I'm kind of a fan of this chappie, even though it's pretty short.**

**Naturally, having just been to Paris for the first time and having absolutely fallen in love with the city, I had to send the characters there. After all, the Draco and Hermione in my other in-progress are currently in NYC, so I just had to send this couple to my second favorite city :-) **

**Incidentally, I have never ridden the Chunnel (English Channel tunnel) train, so pardon me if the experience is totally off. I tried to do some research.**

o0O0o

"_So, do we have a deal?"_

"Yes, I suppose we do," Draco said, "Just give me a little time. Keep acting normal, and I'll come get you when the time comes."

"Which will be…"

"Which will be when I bloody well say it is!" Draco was obviously still slightly sore over Aniela's 'test'. She glared. "Within the week, hopefully," he allowed. "I have to make sure my father can't get into my Gringotts account."

"Fair enough," was all Aniela had time to say before a jiggling of the doorknob interrupted their conversation.

"And how are you two getting along?" Mrs. de Conti asked.

"Oh, very well, mother."

o0O0o

Fortunately, neither Aniela nor Draco had to wait a full week for their escape. Barely three days later, Aniela woke up at precisely 2:47 a.m. to a tapping on the window of her bedroom at her parents' Wiltshire mansion (recently purchased as a place for them to stay when visiting from Italy, as Aniela would be expected to live in England with Draco). Draco was outside her window on his broomstick, knocking impatiently on the thick glass pane. She groggily opened the catch and stuck her head out.

"Hurry up! Grab your things and get on, you don't have time to get dressed!"

Aniela looked distastefully at the single broomstick, but threw on a cloak over her dressing gown and pocketed her already shrunken and lightened trunk. Draco tentatively held out a hand to her, which she grasped tightly as she clambered out of the window and onto the broom, clasping her hands around his trim waist from behind. He flinched slightly at the contact, before relaxing.

"Your guards saw me fly over," Draco explained once they were high in the air, "that's why we had to get out so quickly." He pulled the broom to a clean landing a few minutes later in a large, empty meadow and grabbed Aniela's wide cloak sleeve, disappearing on the spot.

Aniela stumbled slightly as they reappeared in the shadows of a deserted city alleyway. She gave Draco a disgruntled look.

"Hey, it's better than a 160 kilometer broom ride in the cold," He said.

"You could've warned me," she grumbled, transfiguring her nightclothes and cloak into a simple silk dress and wool coat to match Draco's muggle attire. "Where are we, anyway?"

"London, of course," Draco replied as they stepped out into the well-lit street. They began walking briskly down the sidewalk.

"The Ministry keeps tabs on apparition into and out of the country, so we'll have to use muggle transportation if we don't want my father to track us down. Which we don't."

"So where are we going?"

"Paris, for now. It's easy to get to from here, and I know my way around. We used to vacation there when I was a kid. We'll stay out of the wizarding community, though- my father's contacts might recognize us. Oh, by the way- from now on I'm Dan Morgan and you're Anne Morgan, nee Capelli. We're newlyweds who met when I was studying abroad in Florence. "

They managed to buy Chunnel tickets relatively easily, considering their minimal knowledge of muggle money. Draco had changed a good amount of galleons to Pounds and Euros when he stopped by Gringotts.

The early morning train was far from crowded, and Draco and Aniela had a comfortably-sized compartment to themselves. Draco, having been awake now for nearly twenty-two hours straight, settled his tall frame across four seats and drifted off. Aniela watched him, deep in thought, and did not even realize that she herself had fallen asleep until she woke with a start. It didn't take long to figure out why- Draco was making pained noises in his sleep, clearly in the thick of some terrible nightmare. He flipped over to face Aniela, in the seat across from him, and she could see his eyes moving quickly beneath fluttering eyelids and a furrowed brow. Hesitantly, she reached out to prod his shoulder. He jerked away from her finger, but did not wake. She finally took hold of his bicep and shook him slightly. He started, eyes jerking open, and sat up so quickly that the back of his head made harsh contact with the windowpane behind him. He winced and brought his hand to his head, turning away from his traveling companion.

"Sorry," he said awkwardly, still not looking at her. How strange it was to be woken from his nightmares by their very subject. Although he supposed he always was- he himself was the subject that truly frightened him.

They were nearing the end of their two and a half hour journey, and for the next ten minutes, neither said a word.

o0O0o

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